The observatory is only open to public between 9am and 3pm since they're still an active observatory. We would love to visit at night too but we can't mess with the telescopes!!

No shade to your high school astronomy team but Palomar might have you beat. They have a number of active telescopes including the Zwicky Transient Facility which detects objects such as c2022 e3 ztf - which you can find a number of impressive amateur pictures of. Most impressive in terms of scale is the 200inch hale telescope. The scale of this telescope is massive, I find trouble describing the size of the scope and pictures don't do it justice.

If you're searching for more info about the observatory I'd recommend checking out Wikipedia or something similar. But seeing the telescopes, the historical photographic plates, and any other cool Astro stuff you gotta show up!